Is it possible to be a good Christian at the same time as being a feminist?

Sorry, rufous, I realized I missed your question. I don't 'reject' exactly - I like the Bible - but I'm closer to the second position. I'm not a biblical literalist.

Sorry, I keep cross-posting! It is just like saying 'feminist' means 'angry hairy lesbian'. Personally I'm only angry!

Hang on, JoTheHot, who's defining 'Christian'? The Episcopal Church in the US ordains women as bishops, priests and deacons, and as someone pointed out up thread their present Primate is a woman. Are they somehow now not Christian?

jo, do you actually know very much about Christianity?

I do.

That's why I'm Christian and a feminist. Not because I am ignorant enough to go by the 'popular usage' (of either 'Christian' or 'feminist', come to think, as I'm pretty sure - depressingly - that 'popular usage' of the latter means 'angry hairy lesbian'. And I'm only hairy.)

Well jo why not let people of the faith describe themselves? Would you say that to a person of another faith, well actually the majority of people here understand your faith to mean this, so it does, regardless of what you, as a believer think?

In fact there are a lot of misogynists about, if they are the majority can they tell you what feminism actually means? No, I don't think so...

Cross-posted, FairPhyllis. I agree with your post.

The trouble with these discussions is 'christian' is interpreted differently. Those arguing compatibility between feminism and christianity hide behind a restricted definition of christianity along the lines of believing in jesus. This may be an uncontentious definition among practicing christians.

However, I'm a strong believer that usage carries all else before it when it comes to the meaning of words, and the great majority of people understand 'christian' much more widely. They understand it to include the traditions, habits and opinions of people belonging to christian organisations.

It is disingenuous to call yourself christian, restricted sense, whilst knowing this will be understood in the broader sense. Or equivalently to reply to questions about christianity, broad sense, as though they had been asked about christianity, narrow sense.

Christianity, as defined by popular usage, and as I understand it to be used in the OP, is incompatible with all branches of mainstream feminism, and so you must choose.

Sorry for typos - on phone. I also can't post as fully as I'd like to because it takes so long to type a post!

curlew, would you also say there was no point in women struggling to become solicitors or doctors a hundred years ago? Those were patently institutions that didn't want women. If you see a difference it must be because you think law and medcine are intrinsically worthwhile and the church isn't. Which is a fair enough point of view, but it's not the same as saying you shouldn't stick with an institution that doesn't want you.

As to the women in the Gospels, there's a great article by Dorothy L Sayers called 'Are Women Human?' which considers Christ's radical attitude to women and contrasts it unfavourably with the church's.

curlew No, Jewish men and women of the time wouldn't have eaten together. But there are references to men and women of Jesus' group eating together both before and after the Resurrection. That's the whole point - the group didn't obey Jewish customs of the time. That's why they were so scorned. They ate with and touched people who were unclean too. That's why it would be consistent with what we know about them.

I'm sorry you obviously feel so angry about the church. But repeatedly telling Christian feminists not to engage with the church because of its misogyny (which I think you'll find we acknowledge) is like telling feminist academics not to work in higher education because it's institutionally misogynistic (which it is).

That's sort of the point of patriarchy - there is literally nowhere you can go that is not permeated by it. Some feminists choose to work against it in whatever sphere they happen to care about most. For some that happens to be the church.

Ah, but the Church strictly speaking is just a collective term for all Christ's followers. Not a building or an organisation.

I think Jo is talking about the Church rather than Christianity.

JoTheHot What do you know about the Law and Grace? For a Christian (believing in Christ) their faith isn't about adhering to rules it is about following Christ through the promptings of the Holy Ghost and reading and reflecting on what is taught in the Bible.

Your actions are a result of the change that takes place within you when you decide to accept Christ as the son of God. You don't believe you can be made righteous by your own actions but rather by your faith in what Christ did for us.

but if you don't want to adhere to the rules, why join the club?

"There's no reason to think that women wouldn't have been present at the Last Supper"

But no reason to suppose they would- indeed the known Jewish traditions of the time would suggest that they wouldn't.

And you can tell the church hierarchy that you've found women in the interstices of the Gospels until you are blue in the face, and finding them might make you as an individual feel better, but it doesn't make the church any less of a misogynistic institution...........

curlew Um, because for centuries women's presence in the (male-written) gospels has been marginalised by a male-run church? We have only assumed that there were only men present. There's no textual evidence that there were definitely only men, or only 'the Twelve' there. There were probably men who were not the Twelve there too.

There's no reason to think that women wouldn't have been present at the Last Supper. In the context of what we know about how Jesus' followers travelled together and ate together from the gospels and Acts, the women followers being present at the Last Supper would be totally consistent with what we know of the group's behaviour.

It's fairly standard that for women's history you have to read between the lines of most historical sources, isn't it?

I'm afraid that I can't begin to understand why you would want to remain part of an organisation that patently obviously doesn't want you.I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's no use pretending otherwise.

curlew, that's a difficulty that feminists have with all kinds of institution (and not only feminists, indeed). Do you continue to work within the institution and try to change it, for women who come after you and for the institution's own sake (because I do passionately believe that a church that fully values the gifts of all its people will be a better church), or do you take your bat and ball and go home and leave the misogynists to it.

I'm not denying that it's difficult. I went out for lunch with an ordained friend the day after the vote in November: we drank more red wine than was good for us and said some very rude things about certain members of Synod. I don't know how ordained women are coping, because God knows I feel kicked in the teeth by the Church and I'm lay. But I think in the end we have to carry on in faith and hope, because it's our church too and it's better with us than without us.

Having said that, I have twenty years of commitment to the church behind me. I was 18 when the Synod voted to ordain women as priests, and if they'd voted no then I'm not sure I'd have stayed. I do fear that the women bishops fiasco has lost a generation of young women, and that's the church's loss more than theirs.

Well, growth might happen in your personal relationship with God, but it doesn't seem to be happening in the Church.......

I think 'wriggle room' is good - it allows for growth... That is what happens in your relationship with God, you grow.

Legalism, zero tolerance, show no mercy type of adherence to 'rules' is what I find difficult - something or someone has got to give!

One of the things that I find most difficult in conversations like this is the wriggle room that Christians seem to allow themselves. For example-

"A lot of Christian feminists though would consider that the Apostolic Mandate was given to both men and women, because women would have been present at the Last Supper too"

Would they? Why doesn't it say so then? Why has centuries of Christian teaching been based on the fact that they weren't? Some Christians seem happy to say, when presented with a particularly misogynist bit of Church teaching or passage from th Bible "Oh yes, that is a bit grim isn't it? But I don't think that's what God really meant, so it's OK really" Quietly forgetting that Christian Church hierarchies all over the world continue to oppress and marginalise women in all sorts of ways.

Emmeline If you view God as being synonymous with good and what is right, why would you want to do the wrong thing?

The Bible states quite clearly you have a choice. However one option will be wrong, against God. Would you purposely do something that you knew was just wrong, just so you could exercise choice?

Grace and Faith is what helps us want to do the right thing, make the right choice. However, there is also forgiveness for making wrong choices.

There is also a question of becoming a 'slave to sin', where sin becomes like a physical addiction, difficult to pull yourself out of eg telling lie upon lie and then lies to cover up lies. This is not 'freedom' in its truest sense...

So submit to God (make good choices) or become a 'slave to sin'. I know which is more liberating .

Rufous I did say when I brought up the submission issue that it was as much about what it means to be human as what it means to be a feminist. To some extent I think it depends on whether you think feminism is sucessful if it simply makes men and women equal regardless of whether that is a matter of everyone being equally opressed, or if you think feminism is women's liberation and needs to be about freeing women from that which binds them even if what binds them binds men too.

Thanks all for your kind words. Just hearing the informed views of other Christian feminists is encouraging for me.

Emmeline that information re.abortion is really interesting and not something I knew.

Your points about women still engaging in education and politics despite them being patriachal has made me think that perhaps disengaging is not the answer. I wonder about submission though - if it is not gender specific, surely it is no longer a feminist issue? - although I can see your problem with the concept.

LRD - this might be too wide a question but which passages of scripture do you find best contradict misogynistic theology? - or do you reject it based on the historical context or the gender bias of the early church in selecting the biblical canon?

I agree with FairPhyllis.

Also feminism has played a large part in the expansion of the role and status of women in the church (well, some churches). It is no accident that the first authorized ordinations of women in the Anglican Communion were contemporaneous with the heyday of second wave feminism.

There is an organization in the US called the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, one of whose avowed purposes is to counter the effects of feminism in evangelical churches, which of course is testament to the fact that feminism (or what is often referred to in this context as egalitarianism) is a strong force even in some of the more conservative denominations.

I grew up in the US Episcopal Church and I am still an observant, though agnostic, Christian (I know some would say that is a logical impossibility). I am comfortable in this church as a feminist; it was the first church in the Anglican Communion to consecrate a woman bishop (in 1989) and the first to have a woman primate (presiding bishop, roughly the American equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury), selected in 2006. It has consecrated two openly gay non-celibate bishops, one of them a woman. Needless to say, these actions have been controversial and have even led to schism; one reason I remain active in the church is to support this liberal evolution.

This is a really good thread; I am saving it and sharing it with friends. Thanks, OP, for starting it.